WOOD: NB Liquor blind tasting yields stellar choices for wine awards

Last week, at the invitation of NB Liquor, I was in Fredericton serving on the judging panel selecting high-end wines for the Wine Excellence Awards, to be offered at the World Wine & Food Expo later this year.

The wines were, of course, served blind. But after scoring, the judges had an opportunity to see the bottles that had been tasted.

There were an impressive number of stellar wines and quality relative to price appeared to be higher than in previous years when I have judged for this event.

While in Fredericton, I took the opportunity to visit NB Liquor’s flagship store on York Street, in the carefully restored historic Fredericton Union Railway Station.

The space includes a fully equipped meeting room with catering facilities, including a full kitchen. The room is made available for cooking classes and private events, as well as tastings with NB Liquor product advisers.

Next to the meeting room is the former baggage room, which now houses rare wines and fine spirits.

The highlight here is a remarkable array of top Scotch whiskies, including over 40 single malts.

The facility has been open for over a year and appears to be a very successful operation.

If you happen to find yourself in New Brunswick in the next week or two, there is an inventory clearance sale taking place across the NB Liquor system. The NB Liquor website has a complete list of sale items. There are some fine buys, especially among higher-end wines and spirits.

On the way back to Nova Scotia, I dropped in at NB Liquor’s Salisbury Depot store, which is close to Moncton, beside the Ultramar station just off the Trans-Canada Highway at the junction with Route 112. This store specializes in selling off liquidation stock, as well as heavily discounted special purchase items. While stock is not enormous, there are always very good buys to be found here.

REVIEWS

Graffigna Santiago 2008, Pedernal Valley, San Juan, Argentina, 14.5 per cent, $50, Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. (extremely limited quantities): A few bottles are left from last year’s POW Festival at the Port of Wines, Bayers Lake and a couple of other stores. The wine is a blend of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, aged in oak barrels for 18 months and a further 12 months in bottle before release. Intense, developed fine berry fruit with notes of cinnamon, clove, vanilla and subtle oak on the nose lead the way for richly rounded ripe berry flavours harmoniously integrated with fine spice, chocolate and cedary oak on the finish. Solidly structured and drinking well now, but will hold for a few years yet. ★★★